Best Black Friday Drones of 2017

Updated: This is the ultimate MEGA list of drones that are for sale on Black Friday 2017. You will find some of the biggest drone deals of the year below. Keep coming back to see updates.

Laptops and video games dominate the holiday wish lists of many people, but a new entry is quickly making it into that list: drones. Drones are great for capturing aerial photos or videos, or even just as a toy that you can fly around in open spaces. However, drones don’t come cheap.

The upcoming Black Friday (November 24) might just be your chance to score sweet deals on that drone you’re eyeing. Retailers such as Amazon, Kohl’s, Sears, Best Buy, Walmart, Staples, Macy’s, and Target will offer discounts on drones of various models on Black Friday. In fact, some of the deals have already started as you can see below.

In this article, we go through the best drones that you can grab this Black Friday. There’s a drone for everyone, whether you are a beginner or a seasoned drone enthusiast. Check back on this article for updates on new deals as Black Friday comes even closer. We will list all Black Friday drones on this page.

The DJI Spark is made for the aerial photography enthusiast. The onboard camera is supported by 2-axis mechanical gimbal, giving you remarkable stable and clear shots. The Spark comes equipped with all the signature DJI technology including quick launch using Face Aware, and photo and video capture using hand gestures.

The drone can be controlled by syncing with your mobile phone, which also allows you to take photos and videos using more conventional means. The flight of the drone can be pre-programmed using one of several Intelligent Flight Modes – Rocket, Dronie, Circle, and Helix – letting you capture unique videos along its flight path. The app also has its own version of waypoint and follow me pre-programs.

The DJI Spark packs a ton of interesting features in a small package. It is a great, mid-level drone that caters specifically to the ‘dronie’ crowd. If you’re looking for a drone that will take your aerial photography to the next level, then the DJI Spark is for you.

DJI Spark Bundle: If you want the DJI Spark Fly More Combo you can get it online only at Sam’s Club on November 24 or Newegg from November 20 to November 25. You get the same $100 savings. The retail price is $699 and you can get it for $599. It comes with the drone, a remote controller, two batteries, a shoulder bag, a storage box, propeller guards, and extra propellers.

The DJI Mavic Pro is packed with features despite its small size. In fact, it’s the smallest drone to come with a 4K camera. It can be folded into the size of a water bottle making it extremely portable. It weighs just over 1.5 lbs. The drone captures 4K video and 12MP photos with a well designed auto-stabilization function. This drone takes stunning aerial images that will leave you in awe!

The remote is also designed to be small. It comes with a small LCD display so that you can see stats from the drone, such as altitude and speed. You can mount your phone to the controller to see from the drone’s camera.

The DJI Mavic Pro comes with built-in obstacle avoidance to prevent crashes. It can also be controlled with hand gestures which is a lot of fun and practical when taking selfies.

With a max speed of 40 MPH and a flight time of 27 minutes, this drone is miles above the competition. The DJI Mavic Pro is the ultimate mix of portability and power.

DJI Mavic Pro Fly More Combo: For a few hundred dollars more you can get a combo package which comes with additional accessories. It comes with 2 batteries, spare propellers, a battery charger, a car charger, and a shoulder bag. It retails for $1299.99 but can be purchased for $1149.99 at Best Buy and Newegg.

The Parrot Bebop 2 FPV comes equipped with a wide-angle camera that can shoot 1080p videos and 14MP photos. The package also comes with the FPV Parrot Cockpit Glasses, providing an immersive drone flight experience as you can control the drone using the camera as your eyes. The FPV glasses can even connect to your smart phone via the FreeFlight Pro app, allowing you to control your drone from your phone as well as directly save photos, videos, and flight data for easier sharing to your family and friends.

The three (3) high capacity 2700 mAh batteries included with the drone allow for a cumulative flight time of 75 minutes and a range of 2km, letting you explore to your heart’s desires. A 3-axis stabilization system ensures smooth and stable flight. The Parrot Backpack is even included in the package, specifically designed for easy transportation of your Parrot Bebop 2 drone and its accessories.

4. Parrot Mambo MiniDrone FPV

The Parrot Mambo is a lightweight mini drone designed for beginners who want to get used to the mechanics of drone flight. With a 0.3MP camera, it will not give you high quality photos or videos, but you can capture the feeling of FPV flight. Although the drone is controlled only through an application on your smart phone, it actually handles well and the simple controls are very easy to learn and master for amateur drone pilots. The drone also has auto stabilization functions, as well as simple launch and land buttons.

The Parrot Mambo MiniDrone ups the fun factor with the inclusion of a detachable grappling claw, and a miniature BB gun. The drone can also execute barrel rolls and flips at the touch of a button. The package comes with a Li-Po battery that can give at least 7 minutes of flight time, and needs to be charged for only 25 minutes.

Although the drone is made with a sturdy frame and has a good build quality, it is probably not as sturdy as its full-sized counterparts. The range of control of the drone is relatively small at only 200 feet. The Parrot Mambo MiniDrone is perfect if you are looking for a beginner drone that you can easily fly right out of the box.

The FPV version comes with a controller, Cockpitglasses 2, and an FPV HD camera. If you buy it from Dell they are throwing in a $50 gift card bringing it to about $100.

5. Parrot AR Drone 2.0 Elite Edition

The Parrot AR Drone 2.0 has an onboard 720p camera that provides a live feed to your smart phone. Control of the drone is also done using a Wi-Fi connection and an application on your smart phone, which also displays flight data such as altitude and speed as well as other important information such as battery level. The drone is made of a plastic and Styrofoam body, making it lightweight and resilient to impact but likely not as sturdy as higher end drones.

The drone is very easy to fly and the controls in the mobile app are fairly responsive. Due to its lightweight construction, it is best to fly this drone in calm weather or indoors. The pre-programmed launch and landing functions makes it even more accessible for beginners.

The control range of the Parrot AR Drone is limited due to its Wi-Fi connection, at only around 35 yards. Flying outside of the range of control will trigger an automatic landing to keep your drone from crashing. A flight height of up to 50ft is recommended for this drone.

With its lightweight construction, the Parrot AR Drone has become popular in the community for pilots who want to learn how to perform flips and other tricks manually. The camera included in the package is not the best, but will suffice to capture images and videos with good quality. With its modest price tag, this drone is perfect for the mid-level drone hobbyist.

6. Yuneec Breeze 4K Drone

The Yuneec Breeze 4K is Yuneec’s entry into the newcomer market of drone photography enthusiasts. This drone comes equipped with a 4K camera which can record at 30fps. Although the images it can capture are not professional-grade, the output is still impressive and far exceeds the quality expected of images for sharing on social media.

One of the drawbacks of the Breeze when it comes to image quality is the lack of a stabilizing gimbal. This means that the quality of photos or videos that you can captures relies greatly on your ability as a pilot. However, the Breeze comes with a few pre-programmed flight modes which can help beginners capture high quality images, as well as a digital stabilization feature to clean up messy footage. The pre-programmed modes include follow me mode, orbit mode, selfie mode, and journey mode, and seem to be specially designed to capture unique photographs,

The Breeze is lightweight and comes with a customized backpack and a small suitcase to protect it from bumps during transport. It does not come with a controller, but the drone connects to your smart phone via a mobile app. Through the app, you can see a live video feed from the onboard camera and control the drone using a pair of virtual joysticks.

7. Yuneec Typhoon H Pro

The Yuneec Typhoon H Pro rivals the DJI Phantom 4. It is packed full of features and one of the best high end drones on the market.

It’s a hexacopter which means it has six blades. This helps keep the drone stable during flight and makes for much better picture quality. It only needs five blades to fly so if anything goes wrong, you can still land the drone safely.

The onboard camera can shoot 4K video at 30 fps or 1080p at 60 fps. It can also take beautiful 12 MP photos. It has a distortion free lens and wide angle view like GoPros do. The camera is mounted on a 360 gimbal which allows you to pan around and see from all angles. Only one other drone has this feature: the DJI Inspire 1 and it sells for $4,000+. The Yuneec Typhoon H Pro also has retractable landing gear to make sure it doesn’t block your camera’s view.

You can connect two controllers to the drone. One can control the drone while the other controls the camera. Flying the drone can be difficult for beginners. The drone has approximately 20 minutes of flight time.

8. Holy Stone F183W Wifi FPV Drone

The Holy Stone F183W comes with a 720p camera with a 120⁰ field of view. Real-time FPV transmission can be enabled on your smart phone via a Wi-Fi connection with the onboard camera.

The Holy Stone F183W was made to be easy-to-learn for beginners, with a 6-axis stabilization system that ensures stronger stability and ease of navigation. Learning to fly the drone is made easier with Headless Mode, which reorients the front side of the drone relative to the direction of the transmitter. The drone has an automatic altitude hold or hover function, allowing you to take high quality images and videos. It also has the capability of performing 360 flips at the touch of a button, as well as a single-button return to home function.

The included 500mAh Li-Po battery allows for 7 to 10 minutes of flight time.

9. DROCON U818PLUS WIFI FPV Drone

The DROCON U818PLUS WIFI FPV Drone comes with a 720p wide-angle camera which can connect to your smart phone via a Wi-Fi connection to provide an FPV experience. Your smart phone can be mounted on the included remote control to allow for immersive flight control.

This drone is also designed to have an easy learning curve, with one-key take-off, return, and hover functions. Headless mode also allows for easier navigation. The drone has additional safety features such as an emergency stop button, and alarms for low battery power and out of range locations. The included battery can give you up to 15 minutes of flight time.

10. GoolRC T5W WiFI FPV Drone

The GoolRC T5W drone comes with a 3.0MP camera which can provide a real-time feed to your smart phone via Wi-Fi connection. A 6-axis gyro flight system allows for a stable and easy-to-learn flight experience. The drone comes already paired with an included 2.4 GHz remote control, eliminating the need for pairing prior to starting your drone flight.

A headless mode and a single-button return function makes navigating easier and recovering your drone so much more convenient. This drone can also perform 360-degree flips at the touch of a button. A cool feature of this drone is the pre-installed LED lights, which can turn drone flight during night into a beautiful light show. The LED lights also allow you to track your drone when flying at night, and can also make it easier for you to find it if you crash.

For the price tag, this is a good entry-level drone for beginners which provides a balanced mix of easy-to-use flight, image and video capture with FPV option (although image resolution has room for improvement), and entertaining feature such as LED lights and the ability to do aerial tricks.

11. GoolRC T36 Mini RC Quadcopter Drone

If we’re talking about starter drones, then the GoolRCC T36 Mini RC Quadcopter Drone should be on the list. At such a low price tag, you will not feel bad about crashing this drone. However, despite its price tag and small size (about the size of your palm) it is surprisingly durable and should last until you get the hang of controlling your drone.

The drone comes with a 6-axis stabilization system and headless mode, making flight very easy to learn. To accommodate beginners, the remote control even comes with 2 sensitivity settings. Cool 360-degree flips can be done with a touch of a button. The drone comes with a 150mAh Li-Po battery that can give you about 5 minutes of flight time, and charges for about 50 minutes. Due to its small size, the drone can safely be used indoors.

For those who simply want to try to fly a drone, then the GoolRC T36 Mini is perfect. It does not provide image or video capture capabilities, and does not have the fancy functions of more advanced drones, but it is a cheap, sturdy drone that is perfect for learning how to fly.

12. Sky Viper v2400HD

The Sky Viper v2400HD comes with a 120-degree wide angle camera that can record 720p video at 30 FPS, perfect for outdoor action shots. You can stream the video feed directly into your mobile device or store the video on a micro SD card (not included). The included remote control has a provision to mount your smart phone, and has single-button functions for auto launching, auto landing, auto hover, and 8 stunts including flips, barrel rolls, and spins.

For the more advanced drone pilots, the Manual Altitude mode can give you complete control of stunt maneuvers. This drone uses Viper Flight, a state-of-the-art technology that makes Sky Viper drones incredibly stable, fast, and easy to control.

13. Sky Viper Hover Racer

The Sky Viper Hover Racer was built for speed and maneuverability, which you can fully experience by pairing it with its mobile drone racing app. The app provides a virtual drone racing platform where you speed over pre-determined checkpoints and race against 3 other pilots.

Outside of the drone racing app, the Sky Viper Hover Racer still performs remarkably due to the Viper Flight firmware, making the drone exceptionally stable, fast, and easy to control. It might be a little expensive for a starter drone that does not have image and video capture capabilities, but the Sky Viper Hover Racer can still provide an unforgettable drone flight experience.

14. Blue Jay HD Drone

The Blue Jay HD drone provides live video feed to your smart phone from an onboard 720p camera with a resolution of 1280 x 720. The video can be saved locally to a 4GB SanDisk micro SD card which comes included with the package. Flying the Blue Jay is a breeze, with single-key launch, land, and hover capabilities, and a headless mode function. The package comes with a 500mAh battery and a spare battery, allowing you to fly longer.

15. Promark GPS Shadow Drone

Promark drones appear to be made almost exclusively for Walmart. The Promark GPS Shadow drone is packed full of features for the price. Since it’s GPS enabled it can be geo-fenced (so that it only flies in a small area), can return home with one click, and can even follow you as you do cool things.

You can fly for 12 minutes, which is pretty good for a drone in this price range. You can also fly at a distance of up to 500 meters and speeds approaching 20 MPH. It also comes with a WiFi enabled 720p camera, that has 90 degree articulation and a 120 degree wide-angle lens.

16. Protocol SlipStream

The Protocol SlipStream Stunt Drone is one of the smallest and cheapest drones in the Protocol line. As the name implies, the drone can perform a few stunts such as front flips and barrel rolls. It’s basically a toy drone, as it does not have any other functions such as GPS or cameras.

For what it’s worth, the SlipStream flies stable and is a good drone for beginners.

Best Buy’s price is really low. If you are looking for a toy RC for a kid, then this might be the drone for you.

17. Propel SkyRider

The Propel SkyRider comes with an HD camera that is able to capture 5MP photos and 720p videos. A 6-axis gyro stabilization system and 3 speed pre-sets make this drone friendly for beginners.

The lightweight frame of the SkyRider allows it 7 to 8 minutes of flight time using the included Li-Po battery. At a modest price tag, the features and accessories included with the Propel SkyRider make it a good deal.

18. Propel Magic UFO

The Magic UFO Drone is a toy drone shaped like a flying saucer. It has 2 rotors located along the central axis, providing enough stability for its purpose. The main body of the flying saucer has an array of internal LED’s, making this a really cool toy for flying in the dark. Because of its small size, it can be safely flown indoors.

19. Propel Hover Hero

Staples Black Friday Sale – $12.49
November 24

Retail Price:

$15.99

Discounted Price:

$12.49

Savings:

$3.50 (22% OFF)

The Hover Hero drone comes in 2 designs: Superman and Batman. Either model comes with 2 rotors located along the central axis, below which is the body of the superhero of your choice. Internal LED lights make the eyes and the superhero emblem glow. The unique feature of this toy is that it can be completely motion-controlled: the drone ascends and descends automatically using an ultrasonic sensor located at its bottom. The interesting visual design of the drone and the simple control mechanics make the Hover Hero drone perfect for young children.

20. Propel Batwing

The Batwing Microdrone comes in the form of Batman’s Batwing with four transparent propellers located at the bottom side to preserve the design. The package comes with a dedicated transmitter, making flight control smoother and easier. Three (3) pre-programmed speed settings make for a friendlier learning curve. A detachable propeller guard is provided to protect the propellers from damage, especially as they are essentially invisible during flight. Although it is a cheap drone, it flies surprisingly well and has a good stability. Tricks such as flips, and barrel rolls can be done using a single button. Due to its small size, the Batwing can be safely flown indoors.

21. Propel Proton

The Proton Microdrone, true to its name, is a very small drone barely the size of your palm. It comes with a dedicated remote control, and is a good drone for beginners as it comes with a training mode and an automatic hover function. Due to its size, it does not have much sophisticated technology. However, the drone handles pretty well and can be comfortably flown even by children. It is a sufficiently sturdy drone that can handle all the bumps and crashes expected for beginners.

22. Propel Star Wars Drone

The Star Wars drones from Propel are a collection of three drones: The Star Wars T-65 X-Wing Starfighter, the Star Wars TIE Advanced XI , and the Star Wars 74-Z Speeder Bike. These are outright works of art and stay true to the Star Wars franchise. They are hand painted and have details right down to battle scars scored in the movies.

The drones can battle each other in a laser tag like game. Propel’s Star Wars drones represent the pinnacle of battle drones today. A maximum of 12 players can battle each other. Each package comes with a drone, a controller, 6 replacement parts, and 2 batteries. The drones can reach up to 35 MPH.

These drones can be hard to fly for beginners. Luckily there’s a built in simulator you can use to practice. If you are a Star Wars fan, these drones are a must have.

Black Friday Drones FAQ

1. Do I need to register my drone?

It depends on the size of the drone. Your drone might need to be registered if it weighs more than .55 pounds and less than 55 pounds. Many small drones do not have to be registered since they cannot fly high enough to pose a serious threat to airplanes.

It’s important to keep safety in mind if you buy a drone for Black Friday. Never fly your drone above 400 feet and always have visual sight of it.

2. Why purchase a drone on Black Friday?

Black Friday is the best day of the year to purchase a drone. Black Friday deals come only once a year and it’s when we see the biggest discounts. You can save upwards of 40% in some cases. Everyone loves drones. They are the perfect gift for your kids, husband, wife, or anyone who would be thrilled to take to the sky.

3. What should I look for in a Black Friday drone?

Price is usually at the top of everyone’s list. Of course quality is just as important. The number one thing that we recommend people look for is flight time. Most drones only have flight times of just a handful of minutes. This is often because they are using inferior batteries. Spend a little extra and get a drone that will fly for a long time. It’s worth it, we promise!

Beyond flight time make sure it has beginner friendly modes if you are just starting out. Drones can be hard to fly and it takes time to figure them out. Also, make sure to pick up a pack of propeller guards if they are not already included so your drone can survive a few crashes when you are learning.

4. Can drones hold a GoPro?

Yes, certain models of drones can hold GoPros. These are usually higher quality and more expensive drones since they have to carry the weight of the camera and the gimbal (the thing that holds the camera). If you buy a drone in this category it’s likely to last longer and be built better.

Did we miss any Black Friday 2017 drone sales? If so, please let us know in the comments below and we will add it.

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Joseph Flynt

I love diving into the latest and greatest in emerging technologies and seeing what they can do. I enjoy running when I'm not thinking about tech.